The corporal's laugh brought half a dozen soldiers to his side.
"Didn't you tell that preacher, that prayed a week for you, that you had talent for a preacher, and that you would be one if only you got out of that scrape?"
"What's the use of bringing up those old things again?" said Mr. Diggs, angrily. "I—hem, hem!—feel satisfied that my real vocation lies in the editorial field. I think I shall try my hand in the newspaper business."
"Better try preaching first. Maybe you can assist the chaplain next Sunday."
The little greasy sutler's clerk flew into a rage and left the wagon, cursing the fates that would not give him renown.
Diggs having gone, the rest also withdrew, but Abner was not yet to have the rest he so much needed. Scarcely had they gone before the entrance of the wagon was darkened again, this time by that strange person we have known as Yellow Steve. Abner had not seen him since the day he prevented the combat between himself and his brother in the forest, between Snagtown and the Twin Mountains.
"Well, sir," he demanded, "what are you doing here, more than two hundred miles from your usual place of abode."
"Forests and mountains everywhere are my usual place of abode, and have been for the last eighteen years."
"You have been a slave," said Abner.